A Night with Jenn Pelly & Patty Schemel

A Night with Jenn Pelly & Patty Schemel
Book Reading + Signing
Thursday, February 15, 7–10 PM

Please join us the evening of Thursday, February 15th at Soap Plant Wacko: Purveyor of Post-Pop Culture & La Luz De Jesus Gallery as JENN PELLY (‘The Raincoats 33 1/3’) + PATTY SCHEMEL (‘Hit So Hard: A Memoir’) read from their recently published & lauded works.

JENN PELLY | THE RAINCOATS 33 1/3

In 1979, from the basement of a London squat, the Raincoats reinvented what punk could be. They had a violin player. They came from Portugal, Spain, and England. Their anarchy was poetic. Working with the iconic Rough Trade Records at its radical beginnings, they were the first group of punk women to actively call themselves feminists.

In this short book – the first on the Raincoats – author Jenn Pelly tells the story of the group’s audacious debut album, which Kurt Cobain once called ‘wonderfully classic scripture’. Pelly builds on rare archival materials and extensive interviews with members of the Raincoats, Sleater-Kinney, Bikini Kill, Hole, Scritti Politti, Gang of Four, and more. She draws formal inspiration from the collage-like The Raincoats itself to explore this album’s magic, vulnerability, and strength.

Jenn Pelly is a contributing editor at Pitchfork and author whose writing has appeared in Rolling Stone, The Wire, Teen Vogue, and more.

The Raincoats by Jenn Pelly

  • Series: 33 1/3 (Book 126)
  • Paperback: 176 pages
  • Publisher: Bloomsbury Academic (October 5, 2017)
  • Language: English
  • ISBN-10: 150130240X
  • ISBN-13: 978-1501302404
  • Product Dimensions: 4.8 x 0.5 x 6.5 inches
  • Shipping Weight: 5.6 ounces
  • Price: $15

PATTY SCHEMEL | HIT SO HARD: A MEMOIR

Patty Schemel‘s story begins with a childhood surrounded by the AA meetings her parents hosted in the family living room. Their divorce triggered her first forays into drinking at age twelve and dovetailed with her passion for punk rock and playing the drums. Patty’s struggles with her sexuality further drove her notoriously hard playing, and by the late ’80s she had focused that anger, confusion, and drive into regular gigs with well-regarded bands in Tacoma, Seattle, and Olympia, Washington. She met a pre-Nirvana Kurt Cobain at a Melvins show, and less than five years later, was living with him and his wife, Hole front-woman Courtney Love, at the height of his fame and on the cusp of hers. As the platinum-selling band’s new drummer, Schemel contributed memorable, driving beats to hits like “Beautiful Son,” “Violet,” “Doll Parts,” and “Miss World.” But the band was plagued by tragedy and heroin addiction, and by the time Hole went on tour in support of their ironically titled and critically-acclaimed album Live Through This in 1994, both Cobain and Hole bassist Kristen Pfaff had died at the age of 27

With surprising candor and wit, Schemel intimately documents the events surrounding her dramatic exit from the band in 1998 that led to a dark descent into a life of homelessness and crime on the streets of Los Angeles, and the difficult but rewarding path to lasting sobriety after more than twenty serious attempts to get clean. Hit So Hard is a testament not only to the enduring power of the music Schemel helped create but an important document of the drug culture that threatened to destroy it.

Hit So Hard by Patty Schemel

  • Hardcover: 304 pages
  • Publisher: Da Capo Press (October 31, 2017)
  • Language: English
  • ISBN-10: 0306825074
  • ISBN-13: 978-0306825071
  • Product Dimensions: 6.2 x 1.1 x 9.2 inches
  • Shipping Weight: 1.1 pounds
  • Price: $27

Copies of the each title will be available for purchase at the event, and only books purchased here will be eligible for signing.

If you cannot make the event, but would still like to purchase a signed copy of either title, you may order a book online. A link to do so will be made available soon. Copies ordered online can be picked up in-store or shipped.

Questions? Simply email tricia@soapplant.com.